Chapter 13
Sucy was passing through the streets of Blytonbury at six in the morning, carrying a box of milk she bought on the way back to her flat. A small round golden shaped locket now nestled at the crevice of her neck.
She woke up way earlier on a Friday morning, around five to sneak into a house she was familiar with. She knew that the owner wouldn't be there at that time so she used the opportunity.
From her coat pocket, Loa mused. "You are holding onto your beloved's hair."
"I'm not thinking what you're thinking."
"Oh, so the thought of controlling or killing her never crossed your mind?"
"I am holding onto it because it's a piece of her," Sucy said, a hand clasping the golden locket where she neatly rolled the hair and hid it there for safekeeping. "A piece of her I want to always be with."
When she passed by a window shop selling televisions, she stopped by to see what old movie it was playing. She recognized that movie from one of the Orphanage's old tapes required for them to watch.
She hasn't heard it for so long it felt like she heard it for the first time. Which she had to hear over and over again like a needle stuck in a scratched record: "And remember, children, God sees everything! God will see what evil you do behind my back! And God will be the one to punish when I don't!"
"People live their lives probably thinking that their opinions are the absolute truth."
Loa cackled devilishly, akin to an old crazy woman who lived in poverty of the 1700s. "And what is your absolute truth, Sucy?"
"Indignation," Sucy said before catching a sight of a little arachnid on the glass window. "Oh look, your everyday normal British venomous spider!"
"Are you going to kill someone with its poison? You're losing your creativity."
"The lowly spider can't even successfully kill a person with access to healthcare." Checking her pockets to see if she has anything to put the spider in, like a spare empty vial or empty matchbox, Sucy sighed—a heavy one. "Loa, can you keep a spider inside your body?"
"You want it to die?" Loa asked. Like the people around Sucy's small circle, Loa was multi-talented. Sucy sometimes wondered how she got to be so blessed to be surrounded by so many skilled people or a doll. Loa's one particular specialty was sarcasm at Sucy's expense.
Sucy gave her usual response, rolled her eyes and sighed like a martyr, "Unless you have an alternate option, then no."
"Why is the spider important?"
"It's been a while since I have a living pet. Or even a dead one, Dr. Adams told me to get rid of them all."
"I'm glad you don't treat me as a pet but now you're treating me like a container."
Sucy snarled. "Obey me or I will stuff you in my dirty laundry."
"NO, NOT THE LAUNDRY! YOU VILE WOMAN!" Loa flew from her pocket and floated towards the spider.
Ever so vigilant, Sucy looked around to verify if there were any people or security cameras that could catch a glimpse of the floating voodoo doll.
The spider immediately saw the upcoming danger and made a jump for it but Loa was faster and split herself from the frontal area in two and trapped the fleeing spider into her cottony grasps and trapped him inside.
As soon as Loa's stitches tied itself, she stared at Sucy hard with those buttony eyes, absolutely fuming. "Are you happy now?"
"I suppose," she admitted with a faint half-smirk, before seeming to lose herself in thought for a minute, grabbing Loa midair and hide her back in her coat, continuing her morning stroll back to her flat.
Akko still hasn't woken up when she arrived so the milk she bought as an excuse was useless after all. But she shoved it into the fridge. It was almond milk, after all, it won't give them stomach aches.
"I'm so excited today!" Akko chirped loudly, scaring the wits out of Sucy. "Chariot's arrived! But she won't be able to rest much."
"Why?" Sucy was in the middle of cooking their breakfast. She was halfway done when Akko finished showering and went down to the kitchen anticipating their meal.
"She says she needs to go to the Headmistress." Akko shrugged.
"I reckon she's in trouble for taking an early leave of absence."
"Well, could be, but now we're totally ready for your birthday!" Akko inhaled deeply, taking in the enticing waft of cooked food. "What's the occasion? You look like you're having a breakfast party?"
"I have a certain feeling. Not sure if it's bad or good. Reckon we both need a full stomach for the rest of the day."
"Yay!" Akko jumped, twirling towards the fridge. "By the way, Sucy, I didn't know you were into voodoo dolls!"
She could hear her own heartbeat falter. "Excuse me—what?"
"Sweet! We have milk!" Akko dug into the fridge and poured herself a glass. Her cheeks powdered pinkish red. "Aww, don't be shy; I saw your doll inside your bag."
"Akko!" A low current of heat rippled from Sucy. "Did you go through my stuff without permission?"
Akko held up a finger, finishing up her glass of milk before defending herself. "Hey, I didn't go through it."
Sucy blinked, unable to concentrate at the sight of Akko's milk mustache. "T-then how did you know?"
"I see it whenever you open your bag to get your pen or books. It was obvious from where I stood." She said, nonchalantly. "You thought you were being discreet in hiding her like that. There's nothing to be ashamed off of loving cute things, you know."
Damn it.
"If you say so... could you help me set the table?" she asked, covering the fact that she was agitated Akko knew of the doll's existence.
"Aye aye!" Akko saluted and went over the cabinet to retrieve the utensils.
"You weren't being careful." Loa's voice emerged from the coat's pocket she hung on the clothing rack. "Continue pretending you are in a perfect domesticated life with her while you still can. When everything goes down, you know you have to deal with her."
Stop being a spoilsport.
"I'm telling the truth, Sucy. She's smarter than she appears to be. She will learn soon enough. You have to act now."
Sucy repeated the word mushrooms in her head to block the doll out. In doing so, she finished frying eggs, pork sausages, rashers of bacon, and hash browns.
"Also Sucy, I woke up bleeding."
Usually, when someone told Sucy that passage she had to mull over and ask if she looked like she cared, but when Akko asked her that, Sucy just knew. "DID YOU BLEED ON MY BEDDING?"
"I will wash your laundry, okay! Thank god you have a spare tampon on your drawer."
Sucy crinkled her nose at the thought of bloody murder in her bed. She pushed the thoughts away and started heating a can of mushrooms and beans to accompany the fried foods when her flat's doorbell rang.
"Oh, who could it be?" Loa asked, stealing Sucy's thoughts from her head.
She wiped her oily hands with a paper towel before answering the door.
"Sucy."
Sucy's face went cold, glaring at the woman's gray face and gray eyes, and her stern resolved, but her body looked thinner than it did last month, though it made her anvil jaw more prominent. Even Akko gasped at the unexpected visitor.
"Hello, mother."
"You don't have to be formal... daughter." Her voice was controlled, but Sucy heard the anger anyway.
Sucy clenched a fist to keep calm. Blood pounded in her ears, pressed on by a rising heartbeat. "What do you want?"
The woman had a brown satchel over her shoulder and was wearing a black beret, red coat, and black pumps. Her luggage was beside her. "May I join you for breakfast?"
Sucy was silent, observing her. She was aware that her foster mother was out of town for a business trip for three days before returning back, though Sucy wondered why Dr. Adams would visit her instead of her own home that Sucy infiltrated a mere hours ago.
She was sure it was not just because of free breakfast.
Sucy merely nodded and shouted an order behind her. "Help her in would you, Akko."
Akko nodded. She took Dr. Adam's coat and hanged it on the clothing rack next to the coat where Loa was hiding and grabbed the luggage in while Sucy neatly divided the food onto the three plates and added the mushrooms and beans with spring parsleys on top of the eggs and served them.
When all were seated, Sucy stared at the table-top, looking as if she might burn a hole through her plate. She wanted to look anywhere but the woman in front of her. Her cheeks are drained of color, pale as bone.
"Some people asked about you yesterday afternoon." Dr. Adams spoke conversantly, observing the meal Sucy prepared. Despite her weariness, still, she poured herself a cup of tea with the still hands of a surgeon.
They both sat at both edge of the table, facing each other. It burned to be near her. It was a morning full of anxiety, yet Sucy thought it would not start like this.
With her eyes still on Akko, watching the Japanese girl devour the last bites of her meal, Dr. Adams curled her lips. "Careful Miss, what are you a child? Would you like some tea?"
"Umm, no thanks, doctor, I'm good." Akko politely declined the offer of hot tea for she, unfortunately, had to eat breakfast in between them and she wanted nothing but to seem small.
Sucy did her best to be polite, although she has little to say, especially with Akko so close, inhaling everything on her plate. Sucy glanced at her, here or there, hoarding brief flashes of her face. Akko's jaw clenched and her throat working. If Sucy didn't have her pride or her guest, she might run her knuckles over Akko's cheeks, close against smooth skin.
"Just kill her, why don't you just kill her?"
The thought of killing her sang through Sucy's blood, but she will have to be patient. She ignored the doll. For an ancient being, Loa could be stupid sometimes. If she killed Dr. Adams, she would only be helping Cavendish's investigations.
"Who were they?" Sucy asked in a low voice.
"At the flower shop," she scooped some beans on her spoon. "The manager informed me somebody asked if a Sucy Manbavaran worked there the past week."
"What did they want from me?"
"I want you to tell me why they asked for you, girl." Dr. Adams said before popping the entire spoonful in her mouth.
Sucy's jaw clenched, grinding her teeth together so she doesn't smile. "I don't even know them."
"A blonde girl and a dark-haired bloke about your age," she snarled.
The description rang a bell inside her head. "Oh them, they belong to the Student Council from school."
"What did they want from you?"
"Kill her." Loa's voice boomed. "Just end your misery."
Sucy pondered for a moment and exactly knew why they searched for her there, but her foster mother had no clue. For all she thought, Sucy must have acted out badly or somehow revealed their secret—the one about their shared past that Dr. Adams prefer not to roam around town.
"I don't even know. So please, cut me some slack."
Dr. Adams spat, her cheeks going red. She gulped at her tea with angry gasps, draining the cup. The liquid calmed her though. When she set down the empty cup and rested her chin on her hand thoughtfully. "It will be December 31st soon, you will turn 18. So you have more or less two weeks to obey me before I set you off on your own."
"Thank you, I'm internally grateful."
"Sucy, we didn't just get a piece of her hair from her brush for nothing!" Loa was by now, practically screaming to her ear, like a dark conscience as sinister as a demon. "Give me your orders so I can imagine what horrors we'll inflict on her. The hair we stole from her dresser is with me."
Dr. Adams merely raised one shoulder, shrugging. "When you turn 18, our hell lives will be finally over. We'll get rid of each other and my debt with my sister would finally be paid."
Somehow, Dr. Adams' reason grated on her more than anything else. It's hard to hate the woman in a time like this. Sucy remembered that the doctor was just roped into this arrangement with her. And then, of course, Sucy would remember the rest. What her foster mother did to her, the verbal abuse she gave Akko and Chariot—who did not deserve to be treated horribly.
Sucy murmured icily, trying to keep her thoughts at bay. "Is that all you wanted to say, because if you must know, Akko and I have school."
Dr. Adams pushed her chair away from the table and stood. "Just be careful. We don't want anyone knowing about the truth of our arrangement. Tongues wag cruelly in this neighborhood."
"Tongues wag cruelly all across this town." Sucy rolled her eyes.
Her guardian raised an eyebrow at her behavior. "When you turn 18 you are no longer under my guardianship and I will fly away and take a long vacation away from you and my problems." She bristled. The mask of control threatened to slip and she busied herself with an already pristine coat, flicking away a piece of dust that doesn't exist on her shoulder.
"Kill her now please?"
Grant me a birthday wish, Loa, wait for December 31.
"Her death will be on the skies."
With a smile on her lips, Sucy replied loud enough for Dr. Adams to hear. "I suppose that's the best we can hope for."
"We have a new teacher in the middle of the semester?" Akko asked as soon as their three other troublemaker friends told them the news.
"Yeah," Amanda said, her hands resting behind her nape. "We heard the old ladies talking about it when we snuck into the faculty room to steal back Cons' Stanbot."
Sucy tuned out of the conversation since they greeted each other in the hallways. She even tuned out Loa who endlessly chastised her because she stuffed her inside her pocket. "You have small pockets! I feel like I can't breathe—metaphorically! Reminding you that the spider is still inside me, I can feel him clawing his way out of me. Do you know how aggravating this feels? Don't make me wish it upon you!"
She bit her lower lip, focusing on her new class schedule on the printed paper that the school hastily implemented. Classes were supposed to have started two hours ago but there was an assembly that lasted for an hour and a half where they explained that there were new staffs joining in and that additional classes were being implemented by the law.
But the fact that Constanze's little robot companion ticked a professor intrigued her.
"I like being inside your bag! The ventilation is way better! Please, I am a sinister doll with feelings."
"Stanbot was confiscated?" Sucy asked, pinching her thigh casually.
Loa let out a hair-raising scream that Sucy regretted. "What did you do that for?"
"Yup, it was such a dick move, Professor Finnelan hates anything fun," Amanda said, beside her, Constanze looked more grumpy than usual and Jasminka was offering her various sweets and confectionaries that she was able to smuggle inside the school from her mystery school pockets.
"Why would she? Everybody knows the robot is Constanze's speaking aid."
"I know right!" Amanda crossed her arms. "It's so totally unfair when you remove a disabled person's aid device! So I took the matters into my own hand!"
"She will be so shocked to find out Cons had it back," Akko said, grinning. "She'll know it's you."
Amanda chuckled, crossing her arms. "She knows, but unless she has proof to back up her claim then it's inadmissible to the court."
"People will have to believe that Cons manufactured a new one," Jasminka said. "Cons is a genius, that's enough proof. The worst Professor Finnelan can do is at least give Amanda detention for bad manners."
"That's where you'll find me if you can't see me in the club," Amanda said, proudly.
"Why would she hate this little robot though?" Akko asked, bending down a little. "It's so cool! It's got everything!"
Constanze nodded profusely and enthusiastically began to show Akko the new features while; Amanda stared at her and held her gaze.
"What happened to you Sucy?" Amanda noticed, "You looked more depressed than normal."
"Redhead, have you met Sucy?" Loa then shrieked as soon as Sucy pinched her.
Sucy's lip curled at Amanda's question, but any retort died in her throat. She knew that the dark circles under her eyes were more prominent, but probably it was the tense set to her mouth that gave her away. "It's nothing." She waved a hand, dismissive.
"Dr. Adams visited her flat this morning," Akko stated.
Amanda shrugged. "This is so sad, Stanbot play despacito."
Baring her teeth, Sucy prepared for a speech to reprimand Akko about telling people about her business when an unknown authoritative voice startled the group.
"That's a cute little robot right there!"
Sucy's gaze came in contact with a young woman clad in a suit and a large red cape. She appeared to be around Professor Ursula's age, only taller. Her eyes were a shade in between green and blue and painted with a dark pink eyeshadow. Her whole demeanor shouted excitement and innovative that Professor Finnelan might start pulling her hair out in frustration upon seeing her.
"Who are you again?" Akko asked frankly.
"Hello kids, I'm your new subject teacher." She braced her hands on her hips.
"What are you teaching?" Akko asked. Their conversation about the little robot died out as they glanced at the Professor like kindergarten students.
"Any of the Social Studies kind," she smiled, although it didn't reach her eyes.
Akko fished for her printed paper inside her pocket and checked her schedule. "Oh! Are you Crescentia Cruz? I have you for Philosophy!"
"Oh, I have you too."
"We don't!" Amanda offered.
"We have you for Geography," Jasminka added.
"That's too bad." She said, yet a dangerous smile danced on her lips. "You kids can call me Professor Cress. It's nice to meet all of you children."
"Likewise," Akko raised a hand, unknowingly rising up her foot in a girly pose.
Professor Cress checked for the time on her wristwatch. "You better head your classes now,"
"We will!" Akko said, as their friends went on their merry ways while Sucy sighed, waiting.
"Psst, mushroom eyed girl," Amanda poked at her shoulder.
"What?" she hissed.
Amanda glanced at the surroundings first before leaning closer to her and whispered to her ear. "What sort of trouble did you and Akko go into this time, huh?"
"We've been into a lot of troubles. You might have to be specific."
"You know, there's a group of girls asking around about you guys in whispering corridors and toilets. Dude, I thought you might just want to know."
"What do you mean?"
"Asking about some stuff, I'm not sure."
"Can I get names?"
"I didn't get them." Amanda gave a small, self-conscious shrug. "I never saw their faces either. I locked myself in a toilet stall puffing my daily dose of smoke when I heard a girl definitely with Canadian accent asking about Akko's number."
"Okay, thanks," Sucy said, and then a long silence came after. She hadn't actually even thought about that, and Sucy wished the redhead hadn't put the thought in her head. Now Sucy had something new to torture her and keep her awake all night.
Sucy paced along the corridor wondering about the information Amanda gave her. Sure, Akko was no supermodel, but she had a lean figure, clear skin, and ridiculously pretty eyes, maybe all the other girls were finally noticing Akko.
She has to do something about it.